Transcript

00:00:02

>> It's the kind of good news Wall Street has been waiting for, solid job growth, falling unemployment, and higher wages. Just enough to take the edge off a market concerned about a trade war between the US and some of its closest allies. I'm Conway Gittens in New York.

00:00:17

The most encouraging piece of data in Friday's jobs report has to be the jump in average hourly earnings. Paychecks grew by $0.71 over the past 12 months in May. Now that was a jump of 2.7%. Economists say that is the kind of wage growth we should be seeing in a tight labor market like this one.

00:00:42

The other good piece of news came from the unemployment rate. It dropped to an 18 year low. Overall hiring up in May, jumping by 223,000, but the labor market is still struggling to fix the mismatch between the skills companies are looking for and the skills workers posses, the labor force shrinking for the third straight month.

00:01:04

The employment report coming as good news to a market worried about political uncertainties in Spain and Italy, a trade spat with China, possible trade retaliations from Europe, and growing trade tensions on both sides of the US border. One thing the market isn't worried about, the Fed. A June rate hike is pretty much baked into the cards.

00:01:26

A dash of controversy though to go with this month's report, President Trump sent out a tweet an hour before the official release, quote, looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning. Since the White House gets the report the night before, many people interpreted the tweet as a forecast of good news to come.

00:01:46

The tweet broke protocol, setting off a debate about what could happen next month if he doesn't prematurely tweet and whether markets will see that as a sign of bad numbers coming.